The middle-age health rule that could keep you working for longer

Maintaining good sleep habits in middle age could help people to stay in the workforce for longer, research suggests.

By contrast, regularly disturbed sleep or resting for nine hours or more was associated with leaving employment up to nine months earlier.

To evaluate the impact of rest on career duration, researchers in Finland examined data from people aged 50 to 68.

They analysed two separate studies: one involving more than 70,000 public sector workers between 2000 and 2016, and a second monitoring 6,071 Finnish adults from 1998 to 2013.

Data on sleep was collected after people turned 50, and was categorised as either short (under seven hours), mid-range (seven to eight and a half hours) and long (nine or more hours).

Disturbances included problems falling or staying asleep and waking too early.

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People who reported no disturbances had a working life expectancy of 13 years five months.

This was compared with 13 years among those moderately disturbed two to four nights a week, and 12 years 10 months among people whose sleep was disturbed almost every night.

The longest working life expectancy – almost 14 years – was among professional women who reported no sleep disturbances.

The shortest – almost 12.5 years – was among men with severe sleep disturbances.

Elsewhere, public sector workers who slept from under seven to eight-and-a-half hours had a working life expectancy of 13 years two months, while those who slept for more than nine hours were expected to work 12 years five months.

Researchers also found a difference in working life expectancy between professional workers with higher levels of education and those in routine jobs with lower levels of education.

Among 50-year-old public sector workers, the longest working life expectancy was around 13 years and seven months among men and women in professional roles and short sleep lengths.

The shortest was six years and five months, among men in routine jobs with low levels of education who slept for more than nine hours a night.

Researchers said the findings, published in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine, suggest healthy sleep may help people keep working as they age.

“To promote older adults’ participation in working life, supporting sleep of recommended length and good quality may be required,” they added.